[00:00:00] To be the B Sales Trends, the podcast dedicated to sales leaders in the B2B space, where we share conversations about innovative and successful sales transformations to keep you up-to-date on the latest trends. This podcast is brought to you by Global Performance Group.
[00:00:23] Welcome to yet another fabulous episode of the B2B Sales Trends Podcast. The recording that podcast that brings you hacks tips, boldly the ship for sales marketing and customer success. It's brought to you by us who are we Global Performance Group, a revenue improvement,
[00:00:42] but deep that implements behavior change to provide sales people that competence, that confidence and the courage to sell and negotiate based on customer outcomes. My name is Harry Kendall Bachant. Today I have with me for the second time
[00:00:59] Mr Daniel Hayden, welcome to the B2B Sales Trends Podcast Daniel. Thank you, Harry. It's very nice to be here. You've had a fantastic journey. You have obviously moved from a couple of roles from Amix and Google when we last talked. Now you are the senior director
[00:01:21] of Global GoToMarket Strategy and EnableMender, docu-side, first of all, congratulations. Tell us a little bit about your journey and experience in the field of GoToMarket transformation. Yeah, and I think the go-to-market transformation or go-to-market enablement
[00:01:43] term may be quite new to many of your listeners, Harry, but I think one of the things I realized is when I first started in sales in my early days of Amix and moving into sales
[00:01:55] enablement by the end of my tenure there was a heavy connection into other parts of the business, particularly marketing and customer success. When I joined Google, I saw very integrated approach in that Google emerged sales and marketing organizations together
[00:02:13] and we needed to enable both of those organizations to work well and make sure we could drive greater revenue for the business. So my new role at docu-side is very much focused. Yes,
[00:02:24] there is an anchor I would say within sales enablement but we have to really look beyond that now to figure out how marketing and customer success can be enabled alongside sales to ensure that we're taking every possible opportunity we can with prospects and existing clients to upsell
[00:02:41] cross-sell and and drive greater revenue going forward. So for me, the go-to market enablement term is more so an extension of the sales enablement term that many of your listeners will already be
[00:02:51] for a million width. So that's my journey. It kind of started in sales when into sales enablement and now is much more oriented around go-to-market enablement. That's fascinating. For the people who are not really familiar with the terms and and are not quite sure about the differentiation.
[00:03:12] What exactly is go-to market enablement? And how does it differ from let's say the traditional sales enablement part? I know you touched on a couple of things already but can you elaborate a little bit on that? Yes, so as I kind of just mentioned, the go-to market enablement
[00:03:30] thinks much more beyond the role of a seller. So how are you bringing in all the other groups that support the running of your business and the entire ecosystem in driving revenue? So go-to market
[00:03:42] enablement would require you as an organization to think about what your marketing teams focus on such as campaigns, audience segmentation etc and how that impacts the way that sellers then engage with prospects and clients and then how customer success would support them to get the most out
[00:04:03] of their products. And that would in turn drive greater revenue. So for me sales enablement is purely focused on the role of a salesperson where it's go-to market enablement is looking at that entire ecosystem and figuring out how the activities that are completed by marketing
[00:04:21] and CS will really help and connect into sales so then when you're designing an enablement yes, you can sometimes use the same programs with some customization but you're really thinking about the entire ecosystem because that's more effectively going to develop and
[00:04:37] propel your organization forward against the competition. Right, absolutely and can you share some of the key components in your vision of a really good role-bass go-to market enablement strategy around that ecosystem? That'll be interesting. Of course, I think there's three main
[00:04:56] components to a robust GTM enablement strategy. I think the first is quite an obvious one. You need a well-trained sales and marketing organization so particularly around skill-based programs and then what we're looking at a docusign and I've seen in many of the tech companies
[00:05:13] is using AI to support your knowledge base so that you're you could you know your product are changing all the time and that the knowledge of the sales and marketing people need are changing
[00:05:23] all the time so you've really got to look at how can you use AI and new technologies to support the training and the knowledge base that's required. The second thing would be a really strong performance management system so that sales, marketing and CS specialists can receive regular feedback
[00:05:39] and then the third would be having a clear comms or messaging strategy including you know the really really impactful messaging from leadership so that the entire organization is hearing and speaking the language around go-to-market enablement and it's that entire
[00:05:56] collective approach that all ultimately lead to being able to deliver a strong GTM transformation but also changing the culture of your organization. Yeah, that's certainly a few added elements there to the traditional sales enablement that's been so vocal in the past years and I agree with
[00:06:16] you it's got to be that integrated approach into that ecosystem to really deliver results. It's interesting when you think about the work that you have done in the past and you're doing now what are sort of the common challenges that organizations face when moving and transitioning
[00:06:40] to a GTM enablement model? Well if you think back to where this has originated what we just outlined at the beginning of the podcast it started out very much oriented around the seller.
[00:06:54] So one of the biggest challenges I've seen from my particular my recent roles have been around the continued focus on the seller despite branding it as go-to-market enablement and I understand the seller is the one that's going to be driving the revenue for the most part but ultimately
[00:07:12] you're never going to move to GTM enablement and drive greater revenue if you continue to brand it GTM but actually orient it you know only around the seller so that's one of the biggest
[00:07:23] challenges I've seen also when you think about GTM you've got to look at how you manage your resources across all of the audiences some of the programs can look the same with minor tweaks others may need to look quite different if you're targeting a marketing specialist versus
[00:07:40] an acquisition sales manager for example so how you manage your resources across delivering and enabling all of those audiences is another key challenge your face as you transition and then I think another thing to consider here is processes shouldn't hinder your success but they should enable
[00:07:58] you to become much more successful so when you think about transitioning to GTM think much more around what processes do you need in place to ensure that that happens how can I bring in marketing
[00:08:09] and CS leadership to ensure that they have a greater voice on the council when we're consulting with what programs are needed for the next quarter or the next year so the processes that you bring
[00:08:19] in shouldn't slow you down they should really enable you to be a much more impactful GTM transformation organization and I think that's one of the biggest challenges because a lot of businesses bring in the process for structure and it creates rigidity and actually in many cases
[00:08:35] can create hurdles so you've really got to look at in many parts revolutionising the processes that you use. Now considering these challenges in your touched on a couple of important considerations that one needs to pay attention to when implementing a GTM enable
[00:08:54] program but what is it when you think of the top three that say best practices that you have experienced you know when implementing a GTM enable and program what advice would you give to our
[00:09:08] listeners? Well if I think about the top three number one would be you've got a first look at how many resources you have available in your business and then how many more could you recruit because
[00:09:21] it could be that the resources actually slow you down particularly in the shift towards a GTM enable and program so really figure out what resources do you have to play with and then what
[00:09:32] more could you access in order to help you with that transition towards a GTM? I think the second would be how will this new approach change the way that sales marketing and CS all work together?
[00:09:46] So you really want to consider how are they going to change in terms of the way they communicate the way that they build out planning together the way that they're enabled, the way that they
[00:09:55] approach the customer or the market. You would want to consider that because if you see start differences in how they approach the market then you need to accommodate that in your
[00:10:06] enable and if your aim is to bring them closer together you then need to work with other teams within your business to ensure that their engaged and know the change that you're making because you might not be that successful, you know providing enablement for all these audiences
[00:10:21] if there are other teams engaged like I don't know a corporate strategy team or a change management team that can help with the structure of all of these businesses. So that's something to consider and then the third thing would be around how can marketing and customer success leverage
[00:10:36] some of those same materials so a real best practice here would be look at all the materials and tools that you need for sales enable and figure out which ones can be scaled across all
[00:10:47] the other functions in order for you to get greater economies of scale and drive more value for the rest of the organisation without necessarily having to spend too much money. So I'd say there are three things I would really consider and many of what I just mentioned
[00:11:00] are probably best practices in this space. Yeah, and it's so interesting. There is such a big disconnect between sales, marketing and customer success. It's unreal. We hear that all the time. And I think you spot on with your assessment. Daniel we've got a couple of minutes left.
[00:11:18] Future trends. What do you see as the future trends in go to market enablement and how how should people and businesses who listen to this prepare for those trends? Well, the most obvious trend is essentially the crux of what we've been talking about which is
[00:11:36] broadening support beyond sales preparing with the right resources, the right tools and also the right organisational structure. But the most exciting trend I see and I've been doing a lot of work with many clients over the past year before joining Dockysigners this move towards new technologies
[00:11:55] particularly AI and artificial and kind of AR and VR. So be prepared to invest in these new technologies because they are going to power the future of go to market enablement. And then the
[00:12:08] last thing to consider here is look at the merging of orgs, look at the merging of roles and ensure that you recruit multi skilled people with more than one discipline because that could give you
[00:12:20] the coherence and consistency you need across your entire org to help with the change management towards this new model. So where you can merging roles, merging teams or at the very least interconnecting these teams in a way that at least brings them closer together. So I'd say
[00:12:37] though that the key trends I'm seeing but one of the most exciting I think is really the use of AI. So if you can figure out as part of this rebrand and this transition how you could bring in AI
[00:12:48] technologies then I think it could really make a significant difference to the way that you enable and me and ensure that you're using the right resources for the right activities.
[00:12:57] Particularly those that may be more of a more manual input whereas AI is going to free up a lot of your resources but at the same time give you the opportunity to have greater impact. Absolutely fabulous advice. Any final insights you'd like to share with our listeners regarding
[00:13:18] GTM enablement you've shared a lot already but I thought I'd ask. Well I think a final comment here would be you have to move towards GTM enablement because if you don't your competition will and they will reap the benefits of it and I think there's a
[00:13:34] huge power and significant synergies that can be created through looking at how sales marketing and CS all come together. If your sales team continues to operate in silo and isn't selling a line to your brand and marketing campaigns or isn't fully aligned to the way that your customer
[00:13:53] success teams are helping clients get the most out of the product then the sales teams can never improve and they're also going to look quite different to the way that the rest of your
[00:14:01] org operates so the bottom line is if you don't do it then another company will and they'll probably be your competition so really consider this as a change that you want to make within
[00:14:12] your organization because I do think this is the next wave of what we're seeing that we you know that's similar to sales and they won't but is certainly the next step forward
[00:14:22] and I think if you can incorporate AI as part of power in the success then you could even make this far more successful than what you've ever seen within within your business. Daniel thank you so much for those fabulous insights on the topic of go to market
[00:14:39] enablement and no our listeners really appreciated your input and your experience on that. We're going to record another round after that I think you always bring super innovative thoughts for our audience thanks everybody for tuning in again until the next episode happy selling and look after yourself cheers.